Six-Day War
| Six-Day War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Cold War | |||||||||
A map of military movements during the conflict. Israel proper is shown in dark green and territories occupied by Israel are shown in various shades of green | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Israel |
Egypt Syria Jordan Iraq Minor involvement: Lebanon | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Levi Eshkol Moshe Dayan Yitzhak Rabin David Elazar Uzi Narkiss Yeshayahu Gavish Israel Tal Mordechai Hod Shlomo Erell Aharon Yariv Ezer Weizman Rehavam Ze'evi |
Gamal Abdel Nasser Abdel Hakim Amer Mohamed Fawzi Abdul Munim Riad Mohamed Mahmoud Nureddin al-Atassi Hafez al-Assad Ahmed Suidani Hussein of Jordan Zaid ibn Shaker Asad Ghanma Abdul Rahman Arif | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
Israel: 264,000 total 250–300 combat aircraft 800 tanks |
Egypt: 160,000 total 100,000 deployed 420 aircraft 900–950 tanks Syria: 75,000 troops Jordan: 55,000 total 45,000 deployed 270 tanks Iraq: 100 tanks Lebanon: 2 combat aircraft Total: 465,000 total 800 aircraft 2,504 tanks | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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Israel: 776–983 killed 4,517 wounded 15 captured 400 tanks destroyed 46 aircraft destroyed |
Egypt: >700 tanks destroyed >374 aircraft lost | ||||||||
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15 UN peacekeepers killed (14 Indian, 1 Brazilian) 20 Israeli civilians killed and 1,000+ Israeli civilians injured in Jerusalem 34 US Navy, Marine, and NSA personnel killed 17 Soviet Marines killed (allegedly) 413,000 Palestinians displaced | |||||||||
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10 June 1967.
Military hostilities broke out amid poor relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which had been observing the 1949 Armistice Agreements signed at the end of the First Arab–Israeli War. In 1956, regional tensions over the Straits of Tiran (giving access to Eilat, a port on the southeast tip of Israel) escalated in what became known as the Suez Crisis, when Israel invaded Egypt over the Egyptian closure of maritime passageways to Israeli shipping, ultimately resulting in the re-opening of the Straits of Tiran to Israel as well as the deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) along the Egypt–Israel border. In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities in what is known as Operation Focus. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 15,000 Arab fatalities, while Israel suffered fewer than 1,000. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident in which Israeli air forces struck a United States Navy technical research ship.
At the time of the cessation of hostilities, Israel had occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War would have long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was later reinstated following a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal until 1975.